Will I love The New China Playbook?

I love this book because it expertly describes the differences between American democratic capitalism and Chinese state capitalism. Jin’s life has been spent straddled between these two worlds, and she is in a unique position to explain the fundamental differences between these two societies and what this means for the future. The most significant differences center on the nature and pace of creative destruction.

America currently leads in revolutionary (zero to one) innovation and China is succeeding in evolutionary (one to N) innovation. Jin’s work shows how China is looking to create a new model for entrepreneurship within the control… show more.

There is a huge amount written about the "Chinese economic miracle", often by outsiders who perhaps do not have a first-hand, intimate understanding of the way that society and polity works. This book doesn't suffer from those flaws and presents a unique understanding of the structures of, and interactions between the state, business and society in that country. Jin shows how it is the creative interplay between centralization and decentralization, and the learning by experimentation, feedback and evolution which explain the dynamic driving the Chinese economy. She traces this structure back to the ancient Chinese bureaucratic tradition of "lines and… show more.